Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[iam416]

[Dr. Strangelove]

Saw Scott Gottlieb pointing out the number of deaths in NYC versus population to make the case against the "this is just the flu" crowd. New York City, back last October, put out a bulletin urging people to get their flu shots because roughly 2,000 people die from the flu in NYC every year. The confirmed deaths from 6-8 weeks of covid are well above that and over 10,000 if you consider probable cases.

https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/about/press/pr2019/the-flu-can-kill-you-get-the-influenza-vaccine.page

[Jeff Buchanan]

Only thing in the WH's "reopening" plan I question is why are big sporting events among the first tier of things to bring back?? That ought to be one of the last things I'd recommend bringing back. Unless they're talking about with no fans, but that's not the impression I took away.

It's pretty restrictive re sporting venues. Social distancing has to be maintained in Phase One and before you get to Phase One or move from one to two or two to three you have to negotiate all the gates on a county by county basis and obtain all the core responsibilities at the state level. What I would call open seating in a sports venue doesn't occur until Phase Three.

You really have to read the document (link).

To me, the plan or better yet, the guidance from the federal to the state level, from a medical perspective, makes a lot of sense and it is really well laid out. Before you get to the gates, there's a list of core state responsibilities (e.g., targeted testing and tracing) that have to be obtained. It's definitely not easy for a Governor to open things up to Phase One operations as the state's core responsibilities and gates - which are reasonable - have to be met first to go there.

I looked at data available on the FL Public Health Site and found a very detailed county by county rendering of the kinds of things required in getting through the gates. I feel fairly confident that the state of FL can make the case that it is has obtained or is close to obtaining the core responsibilities.

Looking at Broward county (Fort Lauderdale) as of 4/15 it meets two (in red) of the three gates and could probably call meeting the third by tests (in blue) but it's close (downward trajectory for 14d in Influenza Like Symptoms (ILI) or COVID-19 Syndromic Symptoms, downward trajectory of documented cases or positive tests, hospitals able to handle surge in other than a crisis mode - probably based on beds, occupancy, etc).

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6840663-Governmentpacket.html#document/p17

[Dr. Strangelove]

The Smithfield meat plant in Sioux Falls, South Dakota is now the largest single hotspot in America. Nearly 600 employees and another 135 close contacts of employees have tested positive.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexandrasternlicht/2020/04/16/smithfield-foods-becomes-largest-coronavirus-hotbed-in-united-states-south-dakota-governor-yet-to-mandate-stay-home-order/#56771faa2143

[iam416]

[Jeff Buchanan]

Right, 735 cases of which 600, probably more like 700 if you age stratify, will have mild to moderate symptoms and 35-100 will get pretty sick, and maybe 20 of them will have to go to the hospital for O2 therapy. They'll clean the place up and the 700 immune folks will return to work in 2 weeks when the plant re-opens. Another media produced frenzy demonstrably wrong....... again.

Meat shortage? What meat shortage...... well, all the preppers along with the same crowd that emptied the shelves of TP a couple of weeks ago will go or already have gone to the store and walk(ed) out with 100 or more lbs of meat that they'll take home and take a year to eat. Fuck them.

[Jeff Buchanan]

...... Oh, and while I'm thinking about it, get back to us in about a month and lets see if those 700 or so infections exploded to, oh, let's be generous and say 2800 other Sioux Falls residents or if the number steadily dropped because public health officials did their job, contact traced and quarantined the positives and snuffed out this COVID "hot spot"..... good test case in a small town that undoubtedly has learned a few things since January.

[iam416]

Rich Lowry continues to infuriate Hannibal and, amazingly, carries water for the likes of Dr. Strangelove and Whitley (and me) -- https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/...ckdown-absurd/

The gist:

An irony of the coronavirus debate is that the more successful lockdowns are in squelching the disease, the more vulnerable they will be to attack as unnecessary in the first place.

Comity, Strangelove, COMITY!

[iam416]

To me, the plan or better yet, the guidance from the federal to the state level, from a medical perspective, makes a lot of sense and it is really well laid out.

Yeah, it's pretty good. I'm torn between modest surprise because PDJT is at the top of that pyramid and no surprise because there are competent professionals working on this and the plan is an obvious and straight-forward approach to re-opening.

In any event, the phased and gated approach makes a ton of sense.

[THE_WIZARD_]

Meanwhile the SBA program is running out of money and the Ds refuse to do a straight-forward refunding of the program (Payment Protection Plan) -- which the Rs are ready and willing to do. The Ds, of course, need to get all their identity-politics bullshit in the bill so they refuse to help Americans in need. It's almost like they'd rather see more economic hardship.

Senator Sinema has even recognized how ludicrous the Ds are behaving. Will the Media call them on it? Or will they find a way to blame McConnell? Heh. Rhetorical questions.

Additionally Talent it was the D's who INSISTED that 75% of the PPP funds be targeted to payroll only...meaning only 25% of the funds can be used for additional overhead...which is why these funds will not help a majority of small biz owners as non-payroll overhead is typically far more than payroll is. More flexibility on this is needed...and more FUNDS are needed...but once again...the D's are stonewalling.

[iam416]

Ah, thanks for insight re payroll-overhead.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Rich Lowry continues to infuriate Hannibal and, amazingly, carries water for the likes of Dr. Strangelove and Whitley (and me) -- https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/...ckdown-absurd/

The gist:



Comity, Strangelove, COMITY!

Fauci was on Laura Ingraham last night VERY patiently answering questions that compared COVID-19 to AIDS (we don't have a vaccine for AIDS and yet we don't shut down the economy over THAT, so how come DR. Fauci??? Hmmm???)

Then she had on Dr. Phil to undermine everything Fauci had just said. He used the rote "we don't shut down the economy over traffic accidents" argument but then also brought up a new one, claiming that the US has 360,000 swimming pool deaths every year. When he said that I immediately burst out laughing because I knew that couldn't possibly be true. It turns out he probably just misspoke and wasn't intentionally misleading people. There's about 3600 deaths annually due to "accidental drowning" (not just swimming pools) and somehow his brain turned that into 360,000.

Anyways, the comparison is dumb whatever the numbers are. You don't treat independent events the same way you treat highly contagious disease.

[Jeff Buchanan]

From the Rich Lowry, NRO piece .......



Pretty much where I am right now.

This is a pretty intelligent and reasonable crowd here but it still has it's tendencies to polarize to extremes - no surprise as that is exactly what happens in the general public.

Case in point: The news this morning was Dr. Oz apologizing for suggesting schools should re-open during an interview with Hannity yesterday evening. Not surprisingly, a twitter storm ensued harshly criticizing him for allowing that if schools reopened it was OK to have a 0.02 - 0.04 increase in new cases as a result. He said these are the kinds of risks we are going to assume with reopenings. It's hard to understand why reasonable people don't understand this ..... I'll ignore the idiots out there - none of them here - who will never understand as part of the American tapestry.

Never mind that the data he offered came from a study conducted in Denmark on school openings that reopened it's schools through our equivalent of 6th grade on Wednesday. Sure, it's a risk, but the benefits are legion.

Another issue I keep seeing this morning is this "concern from scientists" that the US plan to re-open isn't strong enough on widespread testing. I dealt with this yesterday. In a perfect world, sure, everyone should be tested. We do not have a perfect world. So, you step down and do the next best thing which is exactly what the plan calls for, targeted testing. Why? Because that testing strategy is consistent with the resources available right now to do it.

How can you improve on the lesser strategy of targeted testing? Case tracking. The news yesterday was filled with reports of various states ramping up their public health departments by hiring and training case workers. That is to improve the value of targeted testing. That effort started in FL early last week, a state, BTW that has tested more people who reside in the state on a per-capita basis than any. But, until Wednesday of this week when three unrestricted testing sites opened in the state (1000 tests/day available at each site) for anyone, any age that is sick and thinks they might have been in contact with a COVID + person, it was targeted testing - old folks, hospital admitted, first responders and HCP.

...... and we still have the coming food shortage crisis news and my nearby grocers meat departments will be stripped bare by the same idiot fringe who individually bought cases of disinfectant products and pallets of TP three weeks ago leaving those shelves bare. Crazy

[Hannibal]

Fauci was on Laura Ingraham last night VERY patiently answering questions that compared COVID-19 to AIDS (we don't have a vaccine for AIDS and yet we don't shut down the economy over THAT, so how come DR. Fauci??? Hmmm???)

Then she had on Dr. Phil to undermine everything Fauci had just said. He used the rote "we don't shut down the economy over traffic accidents" argument but then also brought up a new one, claiming that the US has 360,000 swimming pool deaths every year. When he said that I immediately burst out laughing because I knew that couldn't possibly be true. It turns out he probably just misspoke and wasn't intentionally misleading people. There's about 3600 deaths annually due to "accidental drowning" (not just swimming pools) and somehow his brain turned that into 360,000.

Anyways, the comparison is dumb whatever the numbers are. You don't treat independent events the same way you treat highly contagious disease.

Dr. Fauci, the guy who wants to forever end the custom of handshakes? Yeah, that's a guy that I trust to do important risk/benefit calculations.

He's a guy who would tell you to cut off your hands so that you're not tempted to touch your face if given the chance.

Interesting comparison with AIDS though. There are very very very obvious risk factors and behaviors that spread AIDS that aren't illegal. We would save countless lives every year by shutting down gay bars and banning all casual sex between men. The automobile accidents comparison isn't invalid. We could reduce automobile deaths by shutting down all alcohol sales permanently or at least shutting down all drinking establishments after 8 PM and imposing a 35 mph speed limit. I'd bet anything that the economic risk/benefit analysis would show a lower cost per live saved than what we are doing now.

[AlabamAlum]

Always assume the worst about of humanity. You will be right far more than you are wrong.